Academic success or failure in nursing students: results of a retrospective observational study

Background Nursing student academic failure is a phenomenon of growing international interest, not only because of its economic impact but also because it negatively affects the availability of future nurses in different healthcare systems. To recruit the students with the highest probability of academic success, an open challenge for universities is to recruit students who have previously demonstrated superior scholastic aptitudes that appear to be associated with a greater likelihood of academic success. Documenting the relationship between the selection methods used when selecting nursing students and academic failure will contribute to the international debate concerning the optimisation of the selection strategies. Objectives The principal aim of this study was to investigate the role in predicting nursing student academic success of 1) the upper-secondary diploma grades and 2) the score obtained by students in the nursing degree program admission test. Design A retrospective observational study was conducted. Participants and Methods Five cohorts of nursing students, matriculated in consecutive academic years from 2004 to 2008, in an Italian bachelor’s degree program were observed retrospectively. Results Overall, 61.2% of the 1006 considered students concluded their degree within the legal duration allowed for the nursing degree. Students who failed were those who had lowest grades associated with their upper-secondary diploma coursework (p 0.000) and were male (p 0.000). The grades associated with the upper-secondary diploma coursework, unlike the admission test score, correlates positively with the final degree grade and the average value of degree program examination scores. No correlation was found between the upper-secondary diploma coursework grades and the scores obtained in the test for the nursing degree program admission test (r -0.037). Conclusions These results suggest that upper-secondary diploma coursework grades are a parameter that should receive great consideration, especially in cases where there are planned numbers of incoming nursing degree students.